Property of Hyperion
by AnthrimaJoker
Summary: Cypher had escaped the laboratory near Overlook. Some memories were in tact; others needed to be jogged. With her Eridium-fed Phase Strike, she aimed to kill the man responsible for her torment. She would go to the ends of Pandora to watch him suffer. If that meant tagging along with the Vault Hunters, then so it was. Rating upped for future gore.
1. Freedom

**A/N: I only own my OCs. Everything else belongs to Gearbox.**

**Property of Hyperion**  
**Chapter One: Freedom**

* * *

This was what I was made for.

A dead skag pup was on the ground, twitching and rattling as the last bits of life faded away. I'd killed it, cracked its skull and ruptured its brain with my bare hands. Now I faced a much more interesting problem: the mother. The vibrant tattoos, etched into my skin over time, pulsed with my steady heartbeat, faint light glowing against my tanned flesh. Power pooled into my left hand. If one had control, they had the ability to survive anything Pandora could throw at them. I had enduring calm and flawless control. The mother was circling me, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Step, step, pause. Step, step, pause. Her left side was lagging; the beast had a limp where I'd dislocated her foreleg. This was our purpose. This was why we were created. To kill. To serve. The mother skag roared her defiance at me and rushed forward, feet kicking up bits of dirt and dust. I shouted back and slammed my fist into her jaw. Violet light flickered around my arm. A spike of energy erupted into a cloud of purple wisps as I broke one of the skag's bones. She jerked back a bit with a whimper, but that seemed to be the extent of her acknowledgement. Pain wasn't her first concern. I was.

The alpha skag female snarled and pawed at the dirt; the left side of her face sagged and bled a little. I watched her throat rumble with a deep growl. She could smell her pup's blood on my hands, and bared her thorn-like teeth. I panted and glared at her in return, my shoulders limp with exhaustion. Hours must have gone by since practice had begun this morning. Sweat dripped down my face, stung my eyes. I couldn't look away from her. The last time I took my eyes off an opponent, my arm was destroyed, but I was so tired. The skag was suddenly in motion, rushing me again. I needed Eridium and a rest before I could try to break another of her bones. She was fast - alpha skags were always the best of the best in the pack - and I couldn't believe how hard it was for me to jump back, almost out of the way. Almost, but not really. Her jaws clamped shut around my entire head. Small, thorn-like teeth cut into my neck and collar, digging in and beginning to pull me up. She was trying to crush my neck, but her mouth was closed around the metal collar I wore. Everything was dark and smelled of rotting meat. I felt like panicking; I should have been panicking. It was hard to freak out, though, when everything seemed to be moving so slowly. The skag's barbed tongue scraped over my face, gashing my cheeks and forehead. I took a deep breath, despite the rancid stench inside the female's mouth, and clenched my fist again. The marks etched into my face lit up the interior of the beast's mouth - though not nearly as brightly as they would have, had I more energy left - as I drew every ounce of strength into my left hand. I shouted, hoping to startle her, as I twisted and further cut myself and my collar on the razor sharp teeth.

I saw something spark inside the skag's mouth as my fist connected with her throat. It's odd, vertical maw tightened briefly around my neck. Something sparked again - was that my collar? - and she released me. I was covered in blood and drool, which I for once noticed was quite disgusting. She was stumbling forwards, trying to catch her breath, growling at the same time. This was my chance. I drew my knife from the sheath on my hip and drove it into the small weak spot on its armored head: the eye. She howled in pain, rearing back on her hind legs and slashing at me with her long talons. A couple claws grazed my chest, but I couldn't really feel them. I was too interested in watching the huge skag fall over dead, my knife jammed deep into her eye.

Seconds passed like hours and I huffed, trying to catch my breath. "I killed that." My voice was gone, nothing but a whisper. "I killed an alpha skag with my bare hands." My eyes traveled over the fallen beast, then to my fingers, up my palms and arms. I'd done this a million times. Why did it just now feel exhilarating and new? My heart was thrumming in my chest like a bird's, my breath was heavy. Everything looked so much sharper, more crisp. I felt like I'd never really looked at my hands before, like I'd never noticed my glowing designs. The violet marks were beginning to dull, the light fading to what could easily have been mistaken for old tattoos.

"Enough, Cypher. Come back."

I raised my head, looking around. Whose voice was that? My body obeyed almost without hesitation, and it felt normal. But why follow a nameless voice? The collar sparked again and began to die. The soft edges receded even further, giving way to hard lines of reality. In truth, I knew where I was walking: back to the lab. But why did I want to go - because some man I could now see in a white coat told me to? The lab… The lab… It reminded me of discomfort. Loud voices. Screaming?

Clarity. It hit me like a tidal wave and I lost my balance. The ground rushed up to meet me.

I knew Pain. Pain and I were old friends, even. There was an edge to this that I hadn't felt before, though. I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, taking a moment to look down at the dry grass and dig my fingers into the dusty earth. This was new, almost pretty. A few red droplets dotted the ground, and I placed a couple fingers to a cold spot on my forehead. Warm blood stuck to them like dew, and I furrowed my brow. Was I always this fragile?

"Cypher. Come."

That voice. I remembered it, then: the voice that brought with it terrible pain, balefire, and thousands of needles. It made me angry. I jerked my head up and looked around. There he was, standing over me with more disapproval than I ever remembered seeing on his face. I was one of his survivors. We didn't disappoint him. Ever. I recalled a small ember of feeling in my chest that had been snuffed like a candle a long time ago. I had felt rage. I _was feeling_ rage. This wasn't so much a matter of remembering things once forgotten, but that these things were so much _clearer_. The same voice repeated that command: Cypher, come! I had always been spoken to as if I were just an animal. I didn't kill beasts. I _was_ one to these men. I balled up my fist, taking dust and bits of grass in it, and ground my teeth. Why was I seeing this now? I'd been with the lab for a couple years. Surely I would have felt this sooner? Yes, all of this was clear as crystal, but it was still dulled by the fact that I _was_ theirs. I belonged to them like property. My rage was not of their concern. Only that I gave them results.

The man grabbed me by the front of my collar and shook me once. Something cracked. I wondered if he could hear it. "Cypher, I said come!" He jerked up on the device and managed to pull me to my feet and then some. I was inches over the ground, blood pounding in my skull. He shook me again. "When I give you an order, you obey." And then the collar broke in two, splintering bits of metal cutting into the both of us. Morgan stood there, surprised. This must have been a first in his long years at the Reserve. Control collars never broke.

I was surprised I didn't crumple to the ground when the collar snapped, and thankful, too. Something in me wanted to stay and hurt these men that had caused me pain, but common sense gave me more sound advice. Standing upright, I didn't even reach Dr. Morgan's shoulders. He was stronger than me, too. I was exhausted, outgunned, and outnumbered. I had to run, to get away from these men before they imprisoned me again. "You're a rat-bastard." I threw the dirt in his face, turned tail, and ran as fast as I could. Another scientist was already shouting for sedation, no emotion apparent in his voice. My feet kicked up sand and dirt as I sprinted around a rock formation and kept going. Darts flew past me and stuck in the ground at my feet. This was my chance. I was headed for freedom.


	2. Unexpected

**A/N: I only own my OCs. Everything else belongs to Gearbox.**

**Property of Hyperion**  
**Chapter Two: Unexpected**

* * *

The Dead Sands was just as unforgiving as the rest of Pandora, but it seemed to have some of the most abundant beasts. Skags. Skags meant food. Skags meant carnage. They were easy enough to kill, sating my other half's worrisome need to murder, and they provided me with another few days' worth of food - if I could get myself to pay attention long enough to store it. Ten minutes after putting down a small skag pack, I was more than happy to be munching on a mostly-cooked skag leg, lazily swinging my axe around as I walked towards Lynchwood. It was nice to not be killing people, although I still smelled like waste and _really_ old meat. This wasn't helped by the fact that I was splattered head to toe in layers of blood from all sorts of things.

_"Can't you find a place to shower?" _

I hummed, tossing my axe into the air and catching it with skill I rarely possessed. What a feat. Sometimes I could hear me, sometimes I couldn't, and it was times like this that I could never tell one way or another. "Slaughter makes the paint fuzzy with gore." The words spilled forth as though I was singing an old song, bobbing my head this way and that with no semblance of rhythm. This last week or so wasn't the best thing ever, especially in comparison to what we had left behind last month, but it wasn't a particularly big deal, I guessed. Things could have been worse.

Not long ago, after rescuing Roland, I found myself more in control than usual. More... Functional. Communication between these two parts of me had become less strained. The usual disconnect with my body had seemed to be mending. I had begun to speak in (mostly) coherent sentences, and slaughter wasn't something this body relied on to stay calm. People had seemed to become more tolerant of me - though there was this one woman who screamed when she saw me. Every. Time. Still, I was beginning to feel more human as the days went by. I had made five friends, and had a soft spot for Gaige. There was something innocent about her that I didn't want to see broken. We looked out for each other. Maya, though, she was something else. I could have sat and listened to her talk for days. Axton - hm?

An engine roared, pulling me from my thoughts. Something glinted far off and raised a huge cloud of dust behind it. Whoever was driving was determined to catch someone, a stumbling shadow. I lifted my head a bit more, squinting to see what the commotion was. Someone was running, all right, as if their life depended on getting away from whoever it was that chased them.

_"Don't do it. It's not our bus-"_

I'd already raised my axe over my head, opened my mouth, and started screaming. "Meat for the meat throne! Blood for the blood gods!" And then I proceeded to take off like a bat outta hell. Sometimes I amazed myself.

Running was never a problem for me. I don't remember if it was something from the experiments or the life I had before, but I made short work of long distances, despite my uneven gait. In the time it took me to get close enough to understand what the driver was saying, the car had stopped near an overhang between myself and the running figure, which was just perfect. The vehicle was filled with two men that looked like soldiers and one that was wearing a long, white coat. They didn't see me looming over them, glaring through the one open eye in my mask. My head canted to the side, face twitching with rage. I knew what my body wanted to do. Kill. People screamed better than skags or rakk. They died more spectacularly.

Oh god. I was beginning to understand myself.

I watched as they descended from their vehicle, and White-Coat placed a hand on one of the soldiers as if to hold him back. "Don't kill it, Greggory. We need it alive." The soldier nodded and put his pistol away, pulling a metal rod from a pouch. It extended to about a foot and a half, with a heavy ball on the end. White-Coat chuckled and began to dig in his own bag for something. The second soldier appeared to be much more new. I felt a little bad for him, but not very. He had a nightstick, too, and was waving it threateningly at someone that was very bloody and broken.

The figure was on their hands and knees, gasping for breath. "I'm not going back there. I'd rather die." I couldn't tell by the rough voice, but I thought it was male.

White-Coat laughed, stepping towards the dirt-encrusted man. I couldn't see what was in the doctor's hands, but it made the man on the ground shuffle backwards. "How unfortunate that no one cares what you think."

It was building inside of us, that desire to slice flesh from bone. As a voice in my own head, I only had so much control - which ended up with me having to barter with myself more often than not - over what I did and didn't do. This time, though, there was no holding my other half back. "I can't wait to gorge on your liver!" My shout was so loud, so angry, it startled the men. The scientist - that word gave me a migraine - jumped from his own skin. When he turned, his jaw dropped in fear. My axe sliced through the air with ease, landing deep in White-Coat's shoulder and spewing forth a red mist of blood. He screamed, and my body tingled with satisfaction. Splinters of bone and meat sprayed back onto my chest. His body went limp, held aloft by my axe. My chest rumbled with a deep laugh. "Meat makes most magnificent murder."

Three pairs of eyes were glued to me, but I was face to face with only the bigger of the two soldiers. He was in green and brown from head to toe, a Dahl SMG on his back and pistol in his holster, though I had no doubt he had other weapons at his disposal. He raised his metal stick at me, threatening. "We got company, Ewan." When he realized a stick wouldn't deter me, he dropped it in favor of his pistol. His eyes were trained on me, beady things that challenged the monster that I was. "Get the target. I got this one." By the time he had finished, his gun was aimed for my head, poised to land a bullet between my eyes. I didn't end the white coat's misery; just pulled my axe out of him - rip, tear, pieces of his flesh came with my blade, and he yowled in pain - and rushed the soldier.

"Look into my eyes when I stare at you!" I shouted, swinging my axe at him. He jumped back just enough that I tore his jacket a bit, and he fired a few good shots at my face. Light blue flickered over my uncovered eye, radiating from where the bullets bounced off my shield. He was running backwards, still trying to break my shield, when I threw my axe at him. It lodged into his leg. He didn't scream like the scientist, though. He grunted, dropped his pistol, and pulled a shotgun from his leg-holster.

"Go to hell." The blast was meant for my head, and he must have had a great gun; my shield shattered like glass. Thankfully, the only pellets that got through my shield either buried themselves in my mask or grazed over my scalp. The bad thing about shotguns: they take a few seconds to reload. In one swift motion, I grabbed the baton from where he'd dropped it and brought it down on his skull with all my might. The spurt of blood and crack of bone didn't sate me, though the soldier did fall over. I pulled my axe from his leg and drove it into his face. Blood spattered all over me, and the younger, more wiry soldier stared in horror.

He must have been Ewan, who was very much focused on me. Ewan wore the same uniform as the first soldier with the same stupid looking gun on his belt, but his face blanched immediately. From the way his mouth was quivering, he may have been trying to talk, or scream. He wasn't ready for me when I buried my blade in his chest, sending blood and lung-meat everywhere. Poor guy. He might have actually been a decent person, but good people were killed everyday. Still holding my axe, I kicked Ewan's body and sent his trembling corpse flying forward a few feet.

Grass crunched behind me. I turned. The white coat hadn't died and was fumbling with an Anshin vial. I took a few steps closer, and he noticed me watching, glaring down through the one open eye in my mask. He shrieked and dropped the vial. This part of me, the sane part, felt bad for killing him, but I laughed just before I cut his head off. "Darkest souls are thrown into the pile." It had the inflection of, 'That was totally awesome!' Weird. I hadn't heard that one before. Stammering behind me caught my attention. Ah, yes, the figure that had been stumbling through the Sands. I looked, clenching my bloodied fingers around the handle of my favored weapon. She was trembling, sweating, and weak. Easy prey.

Wait... She? Yeah, I could see it now. With her looking up at me, instead of at the ground, I could see the thinness of her face, the violet eyes round with fear, and the gentle curve of her chest. She was panting, holding a knife up to me as if she was strong enough to use it. Her other hand was propping her up. There was something about her that wasn't quite exotic, but different, kinda pretty.

"_She's an innocent, buddy."_

Sometimes I heard me, sometimes I didn't. I was on edge, watching, waiting. After a few moments, my shoulders relaxed. In the heat of a fight, it was a little hard to tell my other half important things like "Stop" or "Tell him to get out of the way", but I was starting to calm down. I was able to (somewhat) listen to me, again. I didn't look away from her, canting my head and watching as she swept a bit of dirt from her face. That was what made her look different! They were faint, covered in all kinds of mess, but they were there: light purple designs that traced up and down her left side.

_"Another Siren?"_

Yes, she had to be. The vibrant purple hair that matched her eyes, the way her marks seemed brighter than the rest of her skin, she had to be a Siren. Her black shirt had been torn beyond repair, though it didn't reveal anything that would embarrass her, and what had been black pants were just as damaged. I was a little confused as to what a Siren would be doing all the way out here, or why she didn't just kill those guys with her brain, but that would settle itself later. The marks on her left side throbbed with faint light again.

_"Yeah, she's a Siren like Maya. I think she needs our help."_

The name of my first friend, the most beautiful woman I had ever met, sent mixed feelings through me. My lip curled, arm tightened as though to strike, but stayed obediently at my side. I was sure I didn't look all that welcoming, covered head to toe in blood, axe in my hand, and a mask over my face that was meant to be terrifying. In fact, that was probably why she was trying to slowly back away, but her right leg wasn't working.

_"Tell her you won't hurt her, that she's safe."_

I growled, stepping closer to her. "Slaughter makes the powder on parrots tingly."

She inched back, violet eyes wider. Her hands shook as she raised the knife higher. "Please let me go. I'll be out of your sight before you know it." Her voice sounded wrong, raspy. She jerked a bit and yelped in pain, grabbing the bum leg and dropping the knife. "Shit."

_"She's not going anywhere with that wound. You can do it. Tell her we can help her."_

"Chains glitter like candied spleens."

_"No! Safe! I know for a fact you can say one four-letter word!"_

My axe fell to the dusty ground as I wrapped my hands around my head. I snarled and clawed at the back of my skull, where the belts secured the mask over my face. I could try all I wanted, but I wan't going to tear the voice out of my own head. After a second, I looked at the woman and glared at her. "Sssafffe." There, I barked it out. It wasn't a complete victory, but that was a nice start.

She stopped trying to back away. "Wh-what?" she whispered.

Under the mask, I ground my teeth. "Safe."

Her face didn't quite soften, but there was definitely a weight lifted off her shoulders. She fell back into the dirt and took a deep breath. "Thank the gods." Were I driving this eighteen-wheeler of crazy, I would have been right down there with her, sighing and taking a break from the endless walking and killing I had been doing. But I wasn't, and couldn't take my attention away from getting this body to work right.

_"Good boy! Now, grab that vial the doctor was going to use and give it to her. We can take her over to Ellie's for the night. Maybe take her to Sanctuary in the morning."_

"Stop quibbling about bacon and bandages!" I shouted. Damn, did I really hate communicating that much? Probably. The only time I seemed to be calm was with guts squelching in my hands. I hadn't wanted this much control, this much human interaction, in a long time. I was probably testing my limits, whatever limits those were.

_"Just do it. The sooner you get her on her way, the sooner you get to ransacking bandit camps. Okay?"_

"Feed the meat?" I asked hopefully.

_"Yeah yeah. You can kill as many things as you want once we help her. It's a deal. Just get her healed and take her to the garage."_

She sat up to watch me, head tilted to the side. I stooped down and grabbed the faintly glowing injection from the dead scientist's hand. When I offered it to her, the woman seemed cautious, as though she thought it was a varkid about to strike her. She pulled her hand away, then, and refused to take it. "I don't know what it does," she said.

_"Tell her it'll heal her wounds."_

Without hesitation, maybe with a hair too much haste, I jammed the needle into her arm and pushed down on the plunger. She shrieked "What the hell, man?!" louder than a rakk and scrambled back a bit, but Zed's little potion was already working magic. She must have noticed, too, because she stared at her beat-up hands as the tiny wounds there began to mend. Various cuts on her face disappeared, a larger scrape on her cheek weaving closed and revealing porcelain-white skin. I hadn't noticed the gash on her thigh. It looked deep, deep enough that one shot wasn't going to completely heal her. But at least the bleeding stopped.

_"Close enough, I guess. Now see if we can't get that car to start."_

I growled indignantly, taking a deep breath. We had an agreement, and I would abide by it. Lucky for us, the keys were still in the ignition, and it was a standard model of runner. Just like Scooter's, although there were little modifications that I didn't recognize: map of sorts with flashing red dot in the center and extra mounts and scopes for guns. It was strange, but I knew how to work it just fine.

She was sitting on the ground, holding the still-open gash on her thigh, covered in all kinds of dirt and grass when I walked back to her. I wondered how long she had been running to look so frail and dirty, but (thankfully) didn't say anything else. I scooped her up like a kid, carried her over, and put her in the back of the Light Runner. Surprisingly, I managed to not hurt her any more than she already was. That was something, at least. Maybe hope for me wasn't completely lost.


	3. New Arrival

**A/N: I only own my OCs. Everything else belongs to Gearbox.**

**Property of Hyperion**  
**Chapter Three: New Arrival**

* * *

Gauging time as it passed without a watch was apparently not my strong suit. I couldn't tell if I had been riding in the car for one hour or three, but with the way my insane rescuer was driving, I was thankful when it was over. Oh yeah, there was no doubt in my mind that this man was off his rocker, especially when he shouted "Insurance fraud!" after _going out of his way_ to hit some spiderants. A lot of spiderants. He probably managed to wipe out a whole colony or two by the time he was finished. The gods had no mercy on the Bandits we crossed - not that I did, either. When it wasn't killing someone, it was unnecessary hairpin turns, rocketing off ledges for no reason and other tricks that made my stomach flip. Hmmm. Yep, he was nuts. If he hadn't saved me, I'd have thought he really was a Bandit, but Bandits weren't willing to save the lives of strangers. Were they?

He had pulled in to a garage somewhere in the middle of the desert - let's not forget that he had to slam on the brakes and nearly send me flying over a mound of junk - though I really wished he would have told me where we were. Garbage and scrap metal were piled all over the place, some of which crawled with a few young spiderants. The sky was a myriad of colors, from blue to pink to purple, green, and yellow. It was gorgeous to look at. I couldn't remember the last time I took notice of a sunset, let alone when I saw one so clearly. After a moment or two longer of staring, I noticed there was a sign that read 'Ellie's Garage'. Huh, sure didn't look like much, but it was a roof and four walls, at least. Before I could ask for assistance, the man jumped out of his seat and walked inside.

And left me. In the top of a rather tall vehicle. With a still very-sore leg.

"Somehow, I am not surprised." I sighed and pulled myself up, balancing my weight on my left foot. After sitting for what was probably a few hours, my muscles already groaned and strained in protest. I looked from the hood of the runner to the doorway leading in to the garage. This was going to suck.

Five exhausting minutes passed before I was out of the car and panting, leaning against the warm metal vehicle for support. It would be a miracle if I could make it up the stairs and into the building before the sun was finished setting. Not that I was bothered by the thought of a night under the stars, but spiderants weren't my favorite company, and the few on their own little pile seemed to be creeping closer.

"Oh, darlin! What happened ta you?" Before I could see who it was, a large pair of breasts was suffocating me, arms pulling me into a tight hug. Yep. That was pain I was feeling. Again. She set me back down, and I got a good look at the woman beyond the boobs. She was definitely as tall as she was wide, wearing an orange shirt and oil-stained overalls. Interestingly enough, the woman smelled as much like flowers as she did gasoline. "Sweetheart, did Krieg do all this to you? I swear, someone needs ta teach that man some manners. Ain't never gonna get a lady ta keep him otherwise." Though the words themselves weren't kind, the woman was wearing a friendly smile.

I looked up at her, wondering what in the seventh circle of hell I had gotten myself in to. "Uh, Krieg?"

She laughed as she pulled out a needle from her pocket, the same kind as before. I reluctantly offered my arm. "The cutie that drove you here. Or at least, he's got a nice body. Never seen his face before, though." The injection didn't hurt as much this time, and when I stepped with my bum leg, it didn't howl in pain. I was, however, still very tired from everything else. She clicked her tongue, as though she was looking at a disobedient child, and turned to help me inside. "Anyway, why don' we getcha cleaned up an' fed? I got a spare bedroom an' some chili y'all can have. There's a shower, too, but the water ain't always hot."

Ellie let me lean on her for support, which made walking a much easier, less painful process than anything I could have tried alone. Steps were uncomfortable, but the mechanic was more than happy to be patient, waiting and talking while I made my way up. The garage, itself, was just as small as it looked from the outside, but down some steps - god, more steps - and through a hallway, there was a warm den that was big enough for seven Ellies, plus me.

"Now, the guest room is over there on yer left," she said, pointing towards a hall, "and the bathroom is attached to it. Go on ahead an' clean up. I'll have somethin' warm waitin' for ya when you get done." With that, she waddled off towards what must have been the kitchen.

I hadn't gotten to the guest room door when I heard Ellie yell loud enough to shake the walls.

"Tarnation, Krieg! You are not taking all my bread and runnin'!"

"Ribcages-"

"Ribcages nothin'! Yer gonna go get cleaned up an' eat a right proper meal! An' for the love of God, take a shower! You smell like Scooter after a year without a bath!"

Something crackled with life, and I could hear a faint voice from the kitchen. "Aw, shucks, Ellie. I took a bath event-chally."

"Scooter, you still stink."

I closed the door to the guest room and sighed, leaning back against it. That conversation was probably none of my business. The room was nice, at least, all earthy tones of beige and tawny brown. The walls were creamy tan, the bed covered in espresso-colored blankets and white pillows. It all looked so soft. I couldn't help myself. I was covered head to toe in dirt and grime, but I sat on the foot of the bed. Yes, definitely soft. The bed begged me to relax further, to rest. I laid back and spread my arms out, neither one of my hands quite reaching the edge of the massive bed. This was heaven in comparison to a cot in a cell for two years.

Before I could fall asleep, I convinced myself that a shower and food were more important at the time and stood. There was a dresser to my left, and I rummaged around in a few of the drawers. The selection was small: army green shirts of one size, massive overalls, large orange shirts, camouflage cargo pants, boxers, and fishing vests. At least some of it looked like it fit. I put a pair of boxers and one of the smaller shirts on the bed and walked into the bathroom.

For someone that was a grease-monkey for a living, Ellie sure did know how to design a bathroom. Everything was blue and white tile, the faucets and knobs shiny chrome. I was honestly surprised. There were fluffy white towels and washcloths stacked in the cabinet, shampoo and soap on a shelf in the shower, and lotion by the sink. It was... Nice. There was a mirror over the sink, and I paused to take a look. Part of me wished I hadn't. Thanks to Anshin, I had no scars, but I still barely recognized myself. My skin had become darker over the years, even without being covered in dirt. Faded lavender streaks and dots pulsed with faint light around my left eye and down my neck. If memory served, my hair was once blonde and I'd had green eyes. Looking into the mirror, I saw how thin I had become, though not gaunt. My features were sharper, but I was still me. Mostly. Wasn't I? In truth, I barely felt like myself. Some of the things I'd done with Hyperion... I shook my head and wasted no more time in starting the shower, stripping, and getting in.

The hot water felt amazing. At the lab, we were hosed off, more often than not. Depending who was in charge that day, we got lukewarm showers. I began scrubbing, enjoying the scent of the floral soap. I couldn't help but let my mind wander, though. Seriously, what was next? I was free, yeah, but I had nowhere to go. Before the lab, I lived with my mother and father in Overlook, but what were the chances they would take me back after so long? I was gone for, what, two and a half years? Would they even recognize me? Would they take me back if they did? If they didn't, where would I go? I filled my hands with water and splashed it up into my face. I could worry about that tomorrow. I had a warm meal and bed for the night.


	4. She was Kinda Pretty

**A/N: I only own my OCs. Everything else belongs to Gearbox.**

**Property of Hyperion  
Chapter Four: She Was Kinda Pretty**

* * *

This was why I appreciated Ellie. She wasn't bothered by my other half in the least, tolerant enough to settle for bossing us (Me...? Him...?) around and making sure we listened. It gave me a chance to relax a bit. After finally being convinced to leave the food in the kitchen, I walked to the guest room and laid on the bed. Water was running, so the Siren must have gotten in the shower. Good. She definitely looked like she needed one as badly as I did.

Ellie was preparing something that I could smell from my place on the bed, and boy did it smell delicious. My stomach growled loudly. I growled with it, groaning as I laced my fingers together behind my head. "Eyeballs need grinders to be appeased." It had been a long time since I ate a home-cooked meal, and the mechanic was a decent cook. I didn't think I had missed the thought of real food so much, let alone eating it.

_"Hey, do you remember anything from before? Food? Friends? Conversations?"_

As usual, I started humming something to myself, oblivious. Of course we didn't remember anything. Sometimes I thought I did. There were flickers of something so faint I could barely see it, but it was gone as soon as it came. It was a little dejecting to be an observer within your own body. I just wanted to remember something about my life - when it _was_ my life. The only thing that had stuck so far was the sound of something sizzling, like meat in a skillet.

Minutes ticked by like blood pulsing beneath a bruise. I must have stopped paying attention to the bathroom because the steam rolling from the opened door caught me entirely by surprise. I bolted upright.

_"Don't look. Don't look!"_

I looked. Augh, of _course_ I did. Not that the Siren was hard on the eyes. She was all sun-kissed skin and soft curves, her body hidden by a fluffy towel wrapped around her chest. Deep violet hair fell down to her shoulders in thick locks, framing her face. Her markings stood out even further than before, free from the dirt that had hidden them. My eyes traced the purple designs that decorated the left side of her body, down her face and shoulder, across the full length of her arm, and up her leg until they disappeared where the towel cut them off - just above the knee. She was staring at me with wide eyes, face pink from the heat of the shower. I stared back. If I had been in control, my face would have been just as red.

_"Turn away, you idiot!"_

"Umm, can I... Could you..." She didn't drop her gaze, but something about her demeanor screamed 'Uncomfortable!' A slender hand pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

I felt bad since this stupid body so rarely listened to me. Being in control would have at least avoided most of this awkwardness. I wanted to apologize to her for this, to tell her I was sorry that I saw her this way.

_"Don't. Say. Anything. Just go get in the shower."_

I rose to my feet and plodded to her, towering at least six inches over her head. "Strip the corpses for clapping minds."

_"Idiot."_

She stiffened a bit, and stepped to the side, granting access to the bathroom. "It's all yours." The woman refused to meet my eye.

Without waiting a moment more, I went straight for the shower, closing the door behind me with, perhaps, a bit too much force. Everything in the bathroom was in order, mirror still steamed up from the Siren's shower. I dropped my clothes in a pile and left my mask on the counter. The water was still hot when I turned it on, so I just hopped in and got to scrubbing.


	5. A Waltz in Dreamland

**A/N: I only own my OCs. Everything else belongs to Gearbox.  
Also, I want to thank everyone for the reviews, faves, and follows.  
The reviews I appreciate most, though, to be honest. Input from  
you readers is how I know if you think I am writing this well or not.  
That you would take a few seconds to give me your thoughts, well  
I won't get mushy, but it makes me happy.  
Anyway, again, thanks for your support. :)**

**Property of Hyperion  
Chapter Five: A Waltz in Dreamland**

* * *

_Dark clouds loomed overhead, seeming to hang lower in the sky than usual. The wind was freezing cold against the bare skin of my arms, and beside me, Dr. Morgan clapped a hand on my shoulder as though to say 'good job'. I frowned and looked at what I had accomplished. Bodies surrounded me, each one broken and missing pieces. The head of the nearest corpse was blown open, the wound lined with glowing purple embers. I had done what I was told, but it didn't make me as happy as it did the doctor. The pile of bodies didn't stop at five or ten. No, there were hundreds of corpses spilling out from between dilapidated buildings and staring at me in horror. For some reason, an eerie violin seemed to be playing from nowhere._

_"Why did I kill these people?" The words tasted bitter in my mouth - bitterer still that they were directed towards the man I believed should be among the dead. I peered up at him, expecting sweat to drip into my eyes. I wasn't sweating. I wasn't tired. Somehow, I had managed to kill a city's-worth of people without breaking a sweat._

_He beamed at me, proud. "Because that is your purpose, Cypher 04. You are science's answer to a naturally occurring problem."_

_I scoffed. "These people were a problem?"_

_"They were Bandits, enemies of Hyperion. They were mangy dogs and you put them out of their misery."_

_One of the corpses moved, a jaw going slack as the man moaned his last. My stomach churned as though I would throw up. "I feel like a murderer."_

_"You weren't created to feel, 04. You are a weapon, a tool to be used as Hyperion sees fit." There was disdain in Morgan's voice. That made me a little smug._

_The corpse moved again, then began pulling itself up out of the pile. He had short blond hair and blue eyes that stared off into the space behind me. The sharpness of his features and grimy appearance was classic of the emaciated men that worked the mines. He looked around for a few seconds before rising to his feet and stretching. Weird. He shouldn't have been able to stand. Even if he was alive, my father had the skull-shivers. Standing would have been impossible._

_I couldn't help myself. I stepped towards him, heart beating like a drum. "Dad? Dad, are you okay?" Morgan's hand tightened on my shoulder and I was cemented in place. On impulse my hand reached for my neck; I expected a collar to be clamped shut around my throat, but there was none. I was free. Why, then, did I obey this man? I had no love for him, no respect. Where was my will? "Dad, answer me!" I couldn't pull against Dr. Morgan, but I tried to shout for my father's attention. Surely if I yelled louder, he might have heard me. Surely. "Dad, I'm over here!" He dusted off his shirt, turned, and walked off towards home. Wherever home was. "Please, don't leave me here, dad! Dad!" Tears built up behind my eyes, though I didn't want to cry in front of this doctor that didn't deserve to see it. My father wasn't hearing me scream. He was gone._

_The violin grew louder, as though an ECHO were in my ear. It didn't calm me at all; it made me feel ill. Morgan tousled my hair and turned me around to face him. I didn't realize there were three other Sirens with us, standing a few feet back. I had seen them before, at the lab - sometimes even practiced with some of them - but the only one whose name I could remember was Jayce. We were friends back home. He'd had a mop of tawny hair before Hyperion got him. Blue eyes, I thought. Now his eyes and hair were just as purple as mine. His tan skin was adorned with glowing tattoos down his right side. The other two were total strangers. Women with long hair and slender forms. They very well could have been sisters. Then again, we _all_ looked like siblings, now._

_"So, she's not as useless as Cypher 08, after all." Jayce looked at me with subtle approval, raising a brow and tilting back his head._

_The taller of the two women glared - if she hadn't been before - but remained silent._

_"And it didn't take hardly any Eridium," the shorter smiled, excited. "Imagine what she could do a month from now."_

_Morgan chuckled. "A month from now she might be competition for you, Cypher 01. Handsome Jack will be most pleased with your progress."_

_They continued like that for a few minutes, talking about how 01 was about to be surpassed by a _girl. _The more they talked, the smaller I felt. Nothing in me wanted to kill people - at least not anyone that deserved it. Maybe if I was getting paid, and they were criminals, sure. But in cold blood, and innocent lives? Why would I do that? I stopped paying attention to them, looking around to see if there was anyone alive that didn't think I was a murder machine. My only other company was the pile of singed corpses, staring with open mouths. The music continued, an ancient song that was quickly becoming too loud. I pressed my hands against my ears, but that did absolutely nothing. My head pounded. It was impossible to hear anything besides the violin. I wanted peace and quiet. Alone._

I woke in a cold sweat, shaking and slightly tangled in the blanket. No one was around, it seemed, and I didn't see any light from cracks under doors. Good. No one heard me. I leaned back onto the pillow and clasped my hands behind my head. It had been nearly two years, if not more, since I'd had a dream - some time before the lab took me. This was an unpleasant reminder of how much they could bother me.

I had forgotten about the others that were held captive in the lab. Jayce was an interesting man before being taken. He was always giving Dave a hard time, which made Karima feel better. There wasn't a problem that Jayce wouldn't have attempted to help someone fix. He was kind. The other two I hadn't seen back home, but I remembered riding in the truck with them on the day Hyperion came for us. The taller one, whose name I doubted I had ever learned, was a teacher. She was trying to support herself and her younger sister. The aforementioned sister looked sweet, but spent most of the ride crying into the other woman's lap. No doubt there were more - I'd fought some of them, killed some of them. I'd heard them in the cells with us. The only distinct faces I could remember, though, were the three I'd arrived with from Overlook.

They were so different the next time I saw them. I mean, of course they were. I was different, too, for sure. We all were. Once in the cells, we couldn't see each other. If we talked, we were shot at. If that didn't work, we were shocked. The teacher was the first to relent, and her sister followed suit. Jayce and I kept fighting. Every time we were pulled from our cells, we would kick and shout and punch and bite until we couldn't. Then we settled for verbalizing our resistance. Maybe part of my fighting, though, was out of fear, not the bravery I remembered Jayce having. Maybe.

Then I got one of their guns and started shooting. After that they stopped taking chances; everyone was collared. I lost all of my freedom, but they lost six of their staff and one of their computers. The control collar was an interesting experience. All feeling was numbed. If I was cut, I didn't notice. A broken bone felt like a bruise. Losing my right arm to a thresher, well, that hurt a good bit, but not as much as it should have. (At least the Anshin serums they used were strong enough to regenerate my arm.) Emotions were snuffed out like a candle, and free thought became a thing of the past. I was a primal beast, concerned only with my kill. The injections of pure Eriduim were just something to be tolerated.

I'd fought with Jayce, though my total memory of the experience was foggy. He had some sort of blast wave of energy he could release, and it was a strong one. I'd seen it break boulders. He won that first fight, and every fight after. I seemed to be getting closer and closer to besting him, though.

I blinked at the ceiling, not realizing I had been staring. The man must have been very content on the bed; I could hear him snoring so loudly that it rattled my teeth. Something about that made me laugh - the image of a massive brute cuddled up with a pillow and snoring louder than a chainsaw. I shook off the discomfort from my dream, the thoughts of the past, and eased back under the blanket. Tomorrow I would see if I could go back to Overlook and find them. I hoped they missed me.


	6. Exodus

**A/N: I only own my OCs. Everything else belongs to Gearbox.  
Thank you for sticking with me this far. If you have any questions,  
comments, or critiques, just review or pm me. Anyway, enjoy!**

**Property of Hyperion  
Chapter Six: Exodus**

* * *

The man didn't eat with us last night and had sprawled out on the guest bed to sleep. So I grabbed a blanket and slept on the couch - which, by the way, was still way more comfortable than my old cot. That morning, Ellie woke us up with rakk eggs and some kind of juice I hadn't tasted before. It was sweet with a little sour bite at the end. If I had any less self-control I probably would have downed the whole pitcher by myself and all the food in her fridge.

Ellie was laughing, seeming to enjoy my company at the table. The man - err, Krieg? - was somewhere else, walking around the garage or killing someone. Ellie wasn't quite sure which. Over dinner, she had told me about a Siren she was rather well acquainted with - someone named Maya. Apparently Maya was the person I needed to talk to, and this morning I was going to find her. "Now, yer gonna wanna go to Sanctuary. There's a Fast-Travel station up in the garage. Select Sanctuary an' it'll take you straight there." She pressed a button on a device I hadn't noticed clipped to her overalls. "Krieg, I know ya can hear me. Git back here. I need you ta take... Uh, what's yer name?"

I shrugged. "The doctors tended to call me Cypher." It wasn't my name. 'Cypher' was an object to the scientists. Like 'Chair'. To Morgan, I may as well have been 'Chair 04' instead of Cypher. Why couldn't I remember my own name?

She nodded and smiled brightly. "Take Cypher, here, to Sanctuary, an' make sure she talks to Maya."

From the little device I could hear a very unhappy groan. "Skag meat and pigeon feathers won't grate the wounds."

"I can't go because I have my garage to run. Be here in ten minutes. I can't be sittin' around all day waitin' for ya. Now git back here an' take Cypher to the city." There was another groan and the device shut off. I doubted she could actually understand him, but bossing him around seemed to do the trick. At least, it worked for her. Something about the Psycho terrified me too much to be so bold. She piled another helping of eggs onto my bare plate. I hadn't noticed how quickly I was eating. "I wish I had company like you more often, sweetheart. The most I git is Bandits tryin' ta terrorize my little business; sometimes Scooter comes for a visit. An' customers really don't stay after their cars are all fixed up."

"Uh, Ellie?" I drummed my fingers on the table. "I don't think I want to go to Sanctuary just yet."

She tilted her head, brows furrowed. "Well then, were'd ya wanna go?"

"I'm from a small town called Overlook in the Highlands. My parents have the skull-shivers, and I took care of them. I want to find them again, make sure they're okay, ya know? Maybe then I'll talk to Maya and learn about being a Siren."

"Don'tcha have an ECHO? You could just call 'em up."

I shook my head. "No. And even if I did, my parents never had one. If they do, now, I surely don't know the contact."

Without a second thought, she unclipped her ECHO and handed it to me. "Here. Take mine."

It was a light device that I stared at for a moment. I'd seen people with them, mostly scientists and doctors recording notes into them or talking to one another through them. "You sure? I don't want to-"

"Hushhup and take it, Cypher. Loggins doesn't do nothin' all day, anyway. He'll git me a new one later. I'll call ya when he does, and _you_ make darned sure to keep in touch."

I nodded and clipped it to my pants, content to let her continue talking while I ate. I couldn't remember the last time I had felt so welcomed by a stranger. Not since Hyperion took me. My family was all I had before then, working with dad in the mines and taking care of them when I had the time. Things were harder after dad started getting the shivers like mom, but I still sat and talked with them. I still had my family.

Then there was Jayce, a friend of Karima. I remembered his face quite clearly. We'd hung out often, sitting with our legs hanging over the side of a cliff. Conversations escaped my memory, but it seemed we were close. As far as I knew at the time, we were the only two free from the skull shivers, although that wasn't true. The teacher and her sister were healthy, as were the others.

I shuddered. The others. The others were healthy, but they weren't strong.

No, that wasn't right. They were strong. They survived - right up until the point I crushed their skulls, or Jayce broke their spines, or the Eridium became too much and their bodies just shut down. It made me furious the first time I watched someone die in there. They were strapped to a table across the room, where I was restrained on mine, shivering and whimpering. The doctor gave him the injection first. One minute he was alive; the next, he was convulsing, throwing up, then gone. The scientist in charge told them to dump it with the rest, all the while taking notes as if he'd killed a rat, not a human.

I broke my restraints and destroyed as much as possible before they decided it was time to collar me, and- in turn - the rest of us. Those of us that complied didn't need to wear collars after too long. The more obedient of us stopped needing it. The teacher was the first of us to lose her collar. I never found out what happened to her head that made her obey, but it bothered some voice, small and quiet, in the back of my mind. There was no free thought when we were collared, no. But there were impressions of feeling, like the discomfort in my stomach after snapping a little boy's neck. Eventually, that began to fade, but it _was_ there for some time.

They tested me once, tried to take my collar off after roughly a year - if my sense of time was right. I snapped back to myself in a matter of minutes and broke the cage I was in. I looked for Jayce and the two women I had arrived with, but I must have been knocked out by something. The next time I woke up, my free thought was gone. I was theirs once again.

Heavy boots thudded down the entry steps, and I turned to look. Krieg only came in far enough that I could see him waiting, axe sitting on his shoulder like a caveman's club. Part of me was curious how long he would stand there, staring, but I thought better of testing his patience. I ate the last bits of egg off my plate, downed one last glass of juice, and rose to my feet. "Thank you, Ellie. I appreciate your hospitality."

She gave me a tight hug, lifting me off my feet. "T'ain't a problem, sugar. Keep those clothes. You can change 'em at a New-U station in Sanctuary if ya want, but I don't need 'em back."

After she set me back on the ground, we said our goodbyes and I followed the Psycho up to the Fast Travel station. It was an... Interesting machine, about as tall as me, and the man had to hunch over a bit to get a good look at the screen. A map appeared on the right panels and a list of locations on the left. The man cracked his knuckles, looking for Sanctuary. Neither it nor Overlook was listed.

"Maybe we could go to the Highlands, first. I don't think it's terribly far from here. I need to go to Overlook for something."

"Stray from the meat-path and joints will shatter like blood-flakes." That... Was not something that filled me with confidence.

I rubbed my arm nervously. "I'm sorry, but... It's just..." I caught myself staring at his chest, trying not to meet his gaze, and took a deep breath. There was no reason I should have been so submissive to someone I didn't know. Lifting my chin, I looked at him straight on. "My parents are sick. I need to get to them as soon as I can."

He glared at me through his mask, and I felt very small. The muscles in his arms twitched and shuddered. "Grinding cartilage sparks the flames." His eye was dull, I noticed, not focused. He wasn't looking at me. He was staring right through me, as though I didn't even exist.

"Uh-"

The man grabbed his axe and slammed the dull side into his forehead. "MEAT GROWS-" He was cut off by... Something, still staring into space. His eye darted back and forth, the skin around it tightening as he waited. "The highway to heaven is sparkling with blood." It was growled under his breath, but seemed much less angry than what he was about to say earlier. He waited again, and I waited with him. Then, without warning, he pulled a map up on his ECHO, a holographic image of all of Pandora. Now he was looking at me, and rather expectantly.

It was well filled in. I could see Opportunity clear as day, but Overlook was nowhere to be found. Great. With my index finger, I followed the border of the Highlands and the Dead Sands until I reached what looked to be a mountain. "There, at the top. It should take about four hours to get there if we hurry."

He nodded and stalked back into the garage. About a minute or so later, a Bandit Technical was digistructed and he pulled up to let me in. The runner from last night was still functional, it seemed. I pointed at it, but he stayed in the driver's seat. Reluctantly, I hopped into the back of the car and hunkered down as best as I could. It was going to be an interesting ride.

Of course, I'd hoped we would have had a chance to get out of the Dust before things got _interesting_. The moment we left the garage, two Buzzards descended upon us. I couldn't understand their taunts, but got a very clear view of one of them waving before he started shooting. We veered off to the side, and I was thrown against the wooden planks that closed in the back of the vehicle. The gunfire was loud, each shot ringing in my ears. The Psycho was laughing, firing the saw-blades at the Bandits. "Thank you for riding the Psycho Express! Tooh-tooh! All aboard!" One of the blades embedded itself into a pilot's chest. The co-pilot kicked him out - both halves, apparently - and took over. Krieg just cackled again. "I'll be collecting your tickets, we have beverages in the DINING CAR!"

Of course, I wasn't prepared for taking down planes from the ground. Long-distance fighting just wasn't my thing. I rose to my knees and pulled the gun off the Psycho's back, not that he seemed to notice. It was rather big for an SMG, painted green and black. The Tediore logo was stamped on the butt of it, and though I'd never gotten acquainted with Tediore weapons - or firearms at all - I readied the gun and aimed. My first few shots flew too far to the left, behind the Buzzard's tail. I scowled and tried again, this time spraying bullets until the clip was empty. Not a single shot hit.

A box of ammo landed beside me. "Lead," Krieg grunted, and then continued shooting.

"Lead?" I threw the gun at the chopper, and this time almost hit my target. I'd just aimed a little off center of him. By the time my gun exploded, the Buzzard had passed. The SMG digistructed in my hand and I pushed a new clip into it. Well, I would have pushed the clip in, if I hadn't tried inserting it backwards. Krieg took a hard right, and I was slammed into the side of the vehicle. A bullet grazed my arm, hurting enough that I dropped the clip _and_ the gun. After fumbling around, I finally managed to get the gun reloaded and started shooting again. Absolutely nothing was hitting the Buzzard. In seconds, the gun was empty.

I cursed my nonexistent history with guns before I threw it towards one of the Buzzard's engines. It missed my intended target, naturally, but did hit the opposite side of the chopper's cockpit. I stared, feeling incredibly ignorant. "Oh, _now_ I get it. Lead my target." And I did. This time, instead of aiming for the co-pilot, I pointed the gun a little to the right, directly in his path. All said, with Krieg driving like a maniac, that was harder than it sounded, but I managed. Inhale, aim. Exhale, fire. My burst of rounds hit the back engine and began to corrode it.

The co-pilot shouted in surprise when the engine exploded and the Buzzard went out of control. "Fuck you, bitch!" he shouted just before he jumped. Not a second later, the other Buzzard slammed into him and they both went crashing to the ground in a fiery mass. I had noticed Krieg pumping saw blades into the remaining Buzzard, now without any sort of pilot on board. The Psycho continued to cackle as the last target hit the ground.

I couldn't help myself. The gun fell to my side, shoulders relaxed, and I laughed as I sank back down. It felt so good to defend myself, even with help from someone a few bullets short of a clip. I was enjoying myself for the first time in years, even if it was just killing people.

_"You are science's solution to a naturally occurring problem."_

That was a sobering thought. I could hear Dr. Morgan saying those words as though he were standing right before me, and I couldn't help but wonder if he'd actually said it once. No, he hadn't. Once I was collared, my free thought was gone. There was no feeling for me. I just acted. There was no reason to explain such things to me. The ride progressively got more and more bumpy as Krieg drove out of the Dust. I just kept the Pepperment Subcompact at the ready, my mind a hundred miles away. What happened to me?


	7. Reunion

**A/N: I only own my OCs. Everything else belongs to Gearbox.  
So, I thought I would go ahead and update now, since I'm going  
to be gone on vacation for a little while. Thanks again for your  
reviews! Any criticism is appreciated, folks. Makes me happy.  
Haha, enjoy!**

**Property of Hyperion**  
**Chapter Seven: Reunion**

* * *

We stood in front of a large door with two flamethrowers hooked to it. Water was still pooled in spots where ice had melted not too long ago, though frost was beginning to form again. I tilted my head, frowning, before looking back at the woman. She had tried talking with me a couple times, both on the ride here and after abandoning the vehicle, but was consistently met with the brick wall that was my body. Communication wasn't happening. Once she figured that out, she seemed okay with the silence.

"Nipple salads," I muttered, cackling like an idiot.

Well, almost-silence.

"Nipple salads!" I laughed a little louder, this time. The Siren pulled a lever and we were lowered down into the bowels of the Fridge. "NIPPLE SALADS!" By that point I was laughing hysterically, hunching forward, and grabbing my stomach. My sides ached and tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. Because it really _was_ the funniest phrase in the world, right? I must have looked like an idiot.

_"What does that even mean?"_

No answer. I was beginning to feel like this body was mad at me. Which wouldn't exactly have been a first, but I wasn't sure what had happened this time. At the bottom of the shaft there was a massive room. Off to the left was something (apparently) very interesting: Fink's Slaughterhouse. My finger twitched against the trigger of a Bandit's shotgun I had picked up on the way. The woman looked at the sign, shuddered and walked over to the vending machines behind me to sell the loot we'd gathered. I stepped toward the door.

_"We can do this later."_

I looked over my shoulder at Cypher, then back to the door. "Highest of angels lose their wings to the meat carnage," I growled. What was wrong with me today? My left hand tightened around my axe. Alright, was _drenching_ the Bandit Technical in blood not enough? Sheesh!

_"No! We've got a job to do, remember?"_

Without hesitation, I yelled and buried my axe into a chunk of ice beside me, digging it in as far as possible. Powder floated in the air as my buzz axe dug deep gouges in the ice. "Rip the flesh!" I screamed, attacking the chunk again. Chips of ice bounced harmlessly off my shield while I released whatever rage I was holding. Again and again slices were taken out of the ice until all that was left was a mound of shavings. "Carnage," I huffed indignantly. Wow, now I was on the level of a pouting child. Fantastic.

"Hey, are you ready to go?"

Cypher was walking my way, peering up at the sign once again before stopping a few feet from me. She didn't miss the tantrum I'd thrown and glanced at my axe. "I got plenty of ammo for the both of us, since it doesn't look like you have many places to keep it, and I bought some guns and a couple shields. Here." It was a Pangolin shield I didn't recognize, but looked a lot better than the old one I was wearing. While I switched out shields, she adjusted the Burning Anarchist she'd just bought, trying to secure it to her hip. After a few moments, she gave up and settled for holding it. "If I remember right, there are a bunch of Rats through the gate, and the Highlands are just beyond it." She handed me a box of shells.

Sometimes this body of mine really confused me. Instead of taking the box and putting it in one of my many _empty_ pockets, I pushed the shells back at her and stalked towards the gate she had mentioned. I didn't make a move to help her turn the crank that opened the doors, even though it was crusted over with frost. When the gate opened and we were hit by a blast of frigid air, there was no hesitation. My feet carried me swiftly into what was, hopefully, a blood bath. Maybe a little more murder would have eased the tension.

Everything in the massive cave was covered in ice and snow. Blood was spattered here and there, a few Rat corpses were still twitching, and not all of the chests had been opened. Someone had been here before us. My boots crunched in the snow as I made my way over to one of the field rats that were so common. I'd been through here once, ages ago, before I found Maya. I kicked a small rock as hard as I could, snow going with it. It fell onto the iced lake a hundred yards away.

The Rat wasn't dead. When I got close enough, a mauled hand shot up for my own. On reflex I swung my axe and lopped off half his forearm. "I can tassste you already, meat monger!" He swiped at me again with his other hand, baring dirty, jagged teeth at me, and I slammed my blade into his skull. Blood and brain and bone sprayed back onto me as he wailed. I howled back, rage making me shake, and proceeded to turn his body - bones and all - into ground meat. Organs squelched in my hands as I pulled them from his chest, various liquids flew back onto my mask and arms, and for some reason I only got angrier.

_"What is wrong with you?!"_

I left my axe in him and began to dig through his tattered clothes. "Sunsets are masterpieces of gouged-apart souls." There was a bit of money, a gun not worth selling, and a lot of bones in his pockets. I snorted, opened the Rat's mouth, and ripped out a few of his larger, sharper teeth. "Hellions smile at the root torture," I spat onto his body, grabbed my axe, and turned.

Everything had been killed in here before we arrived - if not dead, they were twitching and withering away. Cypher was right about there being Rats, but even she was expecting a fight - not that she looked ready for one. Blood and footprints were scattered hither and thither. Not even the iced-over lake off to the right was spared. I couldn't imagine what had been there before, but all that was left were bits of crystal and chunks of rock.

Cypher had gotten far enough ahead that it took me a few minutes to reach her, finding her working on a small safe. Attempt after attempt was proving useless; she couldn't crack it. As gracefully as possible (Yeah right) I pushed her aside and cut the lock off with my buzz axe. Sparks flew and melted bits of snow, one singed the bandages on my right arm, and then the lock fell to the ground. Purple glowed from the inside, and I immediately lost interest. Well, _I_ was still interested; Eridium was always great for Black Market trade, but my body couldn't have cared less. Cypher seemed enchanted, though. "Perfect," she whispered, grabbing the four bars like they were gold. "And... Thank you," she paused, looking a bit sheepish. "Er... It _is_ Krieg, right?"

I stood there, silent. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what had ticked me off so badly.

_"Are you going to say anything, or just stare at her?"_

"Yes."

She smiled, putting three of the bars in her pack. "Thank you, Krieg." I got the impression there was something else she was going to say, but instead she concentrated on the glowing bar in her hands. There was no way to tell exactly what she did, but it looked like she absorbed it. Her marks, which were rather faint before, began to shine and thrum. Her whole left side was lit like a neon sign. The bar seemed to melt and sink into her palm. It was pretty to watch, the way her skin regained even more pigment, appearing brighter, and she looked less gaunt. Seconds later, the bar was gone, and Cypher looked like she'd won the lottery.

"Salvador, where are you going?"

I froze. The short Truxican was stomping towards us, covered in blood just like I was. "Una de esas malditas Ratas robado la cruz de mi abuela." He sounded _mad_. I, personally, wanted to back out of his way, knowing the gunzerker wasn't very fond of me, but my feet didn't move.

"We don't speak Truxican, Sal."

"My grandmother's cross, amiga. One of them stole mi abuela's cross."

The rest of the team was right behind him, starting with Maya, then Axton and Gaige, and Zer0 was nowhere in sight. That worried me more than anything - I could never tell whether or not the assassin would kill me or help me. Gaige stopped jogging after the group, staring at the dwarf incredulously. "Dude, you put it in your pocket after you got it back from the rat thief."

He stopped and frowned deeper. Immediately he began to search his pants for the trinket. "I would _never_ have put it- Ah." He pulled his hand from the worn pocket, a long chain with a golden cross hanging from his thick fingers. "So, maybe I did." It wasn't until he'd secured the treasure around his neck that he noticed us. More importantly, he noticed _me_.

_"Oh boy. This won't end well."_

The Truxican swore under his breath and leveled his gun - no, not gun. _Rocket launcher_ - at me. "Ey, cabrón. Long time no see."

_"Buddy, this isn't the time to lose your head. I need you intact."_

I met his glare and readied my axe. Why did I ignore myself at times like this? Why?

_"Now's not the time. Ellie expects us to stick with Cypher for a while."_

The dull side of my axe collided with my skull. "Shut up shut up shut up! Get outta my head!" Two or three more times I hit myself, for all the good it did me. At least this was a sign I still could hear myself. Though, the fact that I was being willfully ignored four times out of five didn't make me feel that much better.

Gaige's eyes landed on me, and the resulting expression appeared to be a mix of relief and something a little more somber. "Krieg? What are you doing out here?"

"Huh?" Maya took her attention from Axton, whose conversation I hadn't caught, and stopped in her tracks. "Wow. Uhh, hi."

"Oh great," Axton sneered. "Now the whole family is back together."


	8. Across the Border

**A/N: So I decided that Chapter Seven is fine,**  
**and that I should just have loaded Chapter  
Eight. So I did. As I've never written for Gaige,  
some feedback would be nice. As always, read,  
review, and enjoy.**

**Property of Hyperion  
Chapter Eight: Across the Border**

* * *

While I was happy to see Krieg, I wasn't exactly going to hug him. In fact, had I not been a _teensy_ bit distracted by the woman he was with, I probably would have settled for making sure my back wasn't turned. He was cool and all, but bad things had happened when the Psycho disappeared the first time. I mean, Maya temporarily blew out her Siren powers, Axton had _died_. Hell, if it wasn't for Zer0, _I_ would have died. Salvador lost a leg once. Suffice it to say, it wasn't easy. But we made it, thanks to my brain and DeathTrap of course.

Interestingly enough, the woman was standing beside him, watching everything with round, violet eyes. I watched her in return, vastly interested in the Siren and how Krieg had found her. She was beautiful, although not exotic in the same way Lilith and Maya were; her face was much more gaunt. Sharp cheekbones and large, sunken eyes gave her a primal, catlike appearance. Her other features were delicate, soft, and feminine, but the lack of fat on her made every move she made seem dangerous. Truth be told, she looked scary. From what I could see of her arms, there was nothing but lean muscle on her bones. Where Maya was a steely, cobalt blue, this woman was neon purple. Her hair looked like it was cut with a dull knife, choppily falling to her shoulders in shaggy, violet locks. An old pack, probably looted from a Bandit, was slung over her shoulders, and I could see two guns: one in her hand and one in a holster on her leg. Over all, there was a sort of dire-ness to her look that was unsettling, though the smile on her face appeared friendly, albeit a bit out of place. She was talking to Maya, standing directly between Krieg and Salvador as though to discourage the Truxican from shooting.

A Ping! from my ECHO's Heads Up alert system pulled my attention away. On the map display, several red dots were beginning to spring up. I shuddered a little before I could stop myself - I'd been pretty good about staying tough lately, aside from a spiderant incident, but sometimes it was hard to keep my expressions in check. "Hey," I started, looking up at the group. "We might wanna get outta here, like, now. I dunno if they have their own New-U system or what, but they'll be back soon."

Axton cocked the pistol he'd been carrying for a few days - his longest stretch yet - before he lowered it away from the Psycho. "I dunno. You can ask Axe-Man here. I'm sure he knows a lot about Bandits, don'tcha?" The look the Commando was giving Krieg creeped me out. He was smiling, but glaring daggers as sharp as DeathTrap's digistruct claws.

The Siren, whose name I hadn't caught, tensed a bit. "You know, he may not make much sense when he talks, but I'd rather listen to his nonsense all day than backhanded snark."

Before Ax could reply, Maya grabbed his arm. "The kid said we need to go. I think we can talk on the way." With that, she turned him around and we headed out of the frigid Rat nest.

Salvador groaned, but lowered the Torgue rocket launcher. Zer0 was gone, although I could have sworn I'd seen him greeting the Siren earlier. I took my place at the back of the group, shotgun ready to fire at the first sign of trouble. Well, really, I should have already shot Krieg if I was going by those rules. Krieg was a magnet for trouble in this weird band of murderers. It was interesting, though, that the Siren stuck so close to the Psycho. Whatever he had done to earn her trust, she looked ready to kill should Krieg have said the word.

When we came to it, Ax and Sal cranked the gate open. Slowly but surely, warm air greeted us. A thin film of condensation gathered on my arm. The land was green - the first plains area I had seen since leaving Eden 5. My jaw must have fallen open because I had to remember to close it when the Siren touched my shoulder.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she asked.

I nodded, licking my chapped lips. "Yeah, sure is." Sheer cliffs, mountains, valleys, rivers, it was all there. If I hadn't been awake the whole time, I'd have thought we were on another planet entirely.

"Welcome to the Highlands. Home sweet home." The tone to her voice said it all. The somberness, the sigh, the sag in her shoulders, but the faint smile on her face: she hadn't been here in ages. But, if that was the case, where had she been? She shook her head slowly, as if clearing her mind, and offered her hand. "I didn't catch your name."

I shook her hand and smiled. "Gaige. What about you?"

"Cypher."

Blue light flickered over the Highlands, thunder shook the air, and a blast of heat washed over my face. It felt like a supernova had gone off not too far away. We all turned to stare, amazed. Up ahead, hanging in the sky, was a ship that took me entirely too long to recognize. A vibrant cloud of indigo surrounded it until the wind carried the dust away. "Wow..." I continued to gaze as if in a stupor. That looked like a cloud of slag-dust.

My ECHO came to life, Lilith's face popping up on my screen. "And I'm awesome!" She sounded exhausted, as she had every right to be. Phasewalking a person was one thing, but a whole city was unheard of. "Hey guys. I phased the city. No big deal." She took a deep breath. "Find your way back here as quick as you can."

Another voice came to life immediately, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. "Now that Sanctuary's reappeared, you can use any Fast Travel station to get back to the Crimson Raiders. I'll mark the nearest one on your ECHO device."

I couldn't help it. I snorted and stomped off towards a shack. There was an idling Fast Travel station sitting next to two vending machines in plain sight. "Like we need her help." I paused, fists clenched at my side as I looked up at the sky. "I CAN FIND A STUPID FAST TRAVEL STATION!" I shouted. When I got close enough, the station unfolded.

"Wait, Sanctuary wasn't on the map when Krieg and I tried to get there earlier," Cypher started, following me to the shack. "What makes you think you can get there, now?"

I raised my brow at her. Didn't she notice the city floating in the air? "Yeah, exactly like you said. Sanctuary's been in another dimension for the last few hours. It wasn't on the map because it wasn't on this plane of existence. There was no way the link between Sanctuary and the rest of the network could have held across dimensions. However, with it coming back through, we should be able to get to the city without a hitch."

Angel piped up over my ECHO again. How many times did she plan on nosing her way into my business? "Who is with you?"

"None of your business. Stop talking to us." I pressed the END button and turned off my ECHO. If it was important, the others would have picked it up on their ECHOs too. "Now, where was I?"

"Searching for a location on the Fast Travel network, whatever that is."

She watched over my shoulder as I explained, thumbing through locations. "A Fast Travel is an upgrade of the New-U that deconstructs your body and reconstructs you at another Fast Travel point. There aren't many New-U systems that have been upgraded to a Fast Travel, but they're useful when you find them. A New-U is usually a non-interactable station that will reconstruct your body when you die, taking information from your last reconstruction and making you a whole new body out of thin air. Almost like we're cyborgs. Well, I kinda am one. See, I-"

"Oh, look," she pointed at the screen, cutting me off. "Ellie's Garage." She selected the location, but there was no response. She frowned and selected the location again.

"User not recognized."

Disappointment flickered across her face. "You have to be a user to look at the map?"

"Yeah, you have to be in the New-U network to use these things. See, the New-U reads your DNA-"

"Gaige, you're doing it again," Axton chided. He was perched on a rock, cleaning another of his guns.

"Oh, right. Well, it doesn't look like it matters much. Sanctuary wasn't on the list. It's still disconnected from the network."

"The Phaseblast must have taken Sanctuary off the Fast Travel network." This time, Angel's voice was coming from everyone else's ECHOs. Good. I didn't want her tainting my device anyway. "Uhmm." She paused, trying to figure something out. "Okay. Head to the Eridium extraction plant nearby. I think I know how to get you back to your friends."

Axton huffed and pushed himself off the rock. "Well, you heard the AI. Let's get moving."

"Why are you listening to her? She's obviously not trustworthy!" Seriously, this didn't make sense. She had just betrayed us hours ago. What sense was there in taking her help?

From behind me, Maya sighed. "Because we don't have much else to go on at this point."

Something struck me as odd, and I turned around. Salvador and Krieg had been so quiet I'd completely forgotten about them. They were still separated, though. Krieg was hanging back, near Maya, and Salvador was standing by the river. The distrust between them was a huge chasm that I doubted either would cross anytime soon.

Cypher was staring out towards the river, distracted by something. "Am I the only one…?" Her voice was a whisper, the words muttered to herself. Suddenly, something bounced off her shield, a spike the size of my index finger. The Siren sprang to life, moving faster than I thought she was capable of. "Stalkers" she shouted as she darted off.

"Aw shit."


	9. Surprise

**A/N: I only own my OCs. Everything else belongs to Gearbox.  
Also, I appreciate the Faves and follows, but can I get some  
reviews, guys? I really want you to give me some feedback  
on this. Thanks for your continued support, regardless. It makes  
my day.**

**Property of Hyperion**  
**Chapter Nine: Surprise**

* * *

They were everywhere, surrounding us in an instant, and they weren't pushovers. I drew my knife out of habit and pooled energy into my left hand. How could I forget these things? Stalkers were often what kept Overlook so small, aside from the Skull Shivers. I slashed at a ripple, and it skittered back. My follow-up was a smooth kick that connected with something. I'd hoped that something was squishy, but light blue briefly flickered in the air. The only thing I'd damaged was its organic shield.

Beside me, Axton dropped a storage deck that sprouted to life. It produced a turret, and a pretty nice one at that. Immediately the gun turret locked on to a stalker and pounded away, massive rounds thumping as they hit their target. The bullets made quick work of the stalker's shield, and then the reptile shrieked in pain. Blood ran in rivulets from holes punched into it's body, a thick, electric-blue liquid that smelled like old gym socks and spoiled milk. The turret collapsed just as the stalker did. The soldier took some of his own shots at it, just to make sure the thing was dead. "Man, what are these things?"

I laughed softly as my knife glanced off my target's shield again. "Stalkers: Organic shield and cloaking combo." The blade connected with the stalker, but it still didn't bleed. "Thick hide." I gave up with the knife and pulled out my Torgue shotgun. The second shot broke through and did a little damage. "Happy homecoming to me." The stalker hissed at me, and I took my chance. I'd meant to hit it's bared throat, but the pink, soft flesh of its mouth accepted bullets just as well. Without its head, the reptile fell to the ground and twitched. I was smiling as I eyed another stalker.

A giant robot digistructed from thin air near Gaige and went to town with a laser and claws. It was interesting to see from my peripheral vision. While her bot did the best at shredding through lizards thoroughly, she used her own electric pistol. Smart. I should have bought one at the vending machine. I hadn't noticed Zer0 was missing until he appeared a few yards off with his sword jammed through a stalker. That was pretty cool, too.

Another volley of spikes hit me, and I heard the lovely sound of my shield dying. "Shit." I aimed my gun for the nearest glimmer of a stalker and fired. The soft _plink_ of my bullets bouncing off the stalker's shield was the only indication I'd hit it. Not that I'd actually damaged it, of course. I was going to need something a little more effective if I was going to hold my own with the Vault Hunters. Energy played like sparks across my left side, making my fingers twitch. "Fine," I muttered to myself, dropping the gun in its place. Violet light glowed from my swirling tattoos, making it slightly easier to see the places a stalker was crawling with reflected light. After a moment of concentration, I lunged forward and grabbed the stalker in hopes of crushing bones beneath my grip. Purple mist billowed out from under my hand; a small film of liquid collected on the stalker's hide. It tensed and began to thrash, bucking and howling in what I assumed to be rage. The smell of sulfur filled my nose and I realized what I was doing. Slag! I was slagging this thing! After a moment, the stalker's shield cracked and shattered under my grip. I pulled my Anarchist out of the back of my belt as the thing screamed. I was straddling the stalker's back, hand just behind its head, and tightening my hold as much as I could. With the Anarchist pressed as close as I could get it to the squirming creature's skull, I pulled the trigger. Five rounds later the thing fell beneath my weight, a lifeless shell.

Salvador and Krieg were staying on opposite sides of the battlefield, Sal toting a rocket launcher and Krieg with his axe. Krieg was slashing and grinding through foes left and right, shouting at the top of his lungs about meat. Somehow I was adapting rather well to his crazy... Kinda. Salvador was blasting stalkers right off the plateau, whether or not they were dead when they flew, I didn't know. So I wasn't the only one having a little fun.

I turned my head just in time to see a stalker, shield sparking as it died, descending upon me. On instinct, I flinched away and waited for it to rip at my flesh. It didn't. Opening my eyes, I could see it suspended in the air by a giant sphere of blue light. Maya was on the other side with a similar glow of power around her hand. Another second ticked by, and the stalker's back exploded.

And I was covered in blood, guts, and things I didn't want to think about. My shoulders shook with disgust, but I managed to keep the bile down as I fought the urge to vomit.

That was the last stalker in the immediate area. Gaige was finishing a young one whose shield was flickering in and out of life. Everyone else seemed to be scavenging the area for the items that tended to fall out of the beasts when they were ripped open. I walked over to the river and waded in. If nothing else, I didn't want to be covered in organs and fluid and things that smelled like death.

"So, you really are a Siren, then," Axton remarked. I raised my head and saw him coming towards me. He was just as covered in the thick, blue blood of the stalkers as I was, but made no move to join me in the river. Good.

I let my temper flare up. "No, this is a fashion statement." The words were dripping with snark. Not that he seemed to be the type to care. A fish grazed my leg as it swam downstream. It wasn't much, but the contact was enough to ground me. I had no reason to be angry with him, especially because I didn't know him. That didn't mean I had to like the way he had talked about Krieg, though.

The man barked a laugh and wiped a bit of blood from his hands. "Can you blame me for being a little skeptical? Sirens aren't exactly common, and you showed up with Krieg."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

His face lost all signs of levity, brows drawn down and the impish twist of his lips gone. "Look, the guy left us to fend off waves of Bandits and Rats in the Tundra Express. He left without warning, and in a fight that could have gone much better without the lasting injuries afterward. I mean, do you _know_ how hard it is to find Anshin serum outside of a vending machine?" He threw his arms in the air, exasperated. "Even with some of our tech upgrades, we could have been seriously hosed because of that Bandit. Not to mention his wanted poster says he belongs to Hyperion. What would Hyperion want with him?"

My hands tightened to fists at my sides. "They're sick _fucks_. Who cares what they want with innocent people aside from twisting them into monsters? Krieg is the only reason I'm not back there, collar around my neck, killing people without discretion." I waded closer to him, aware of the pulsating glow of my tattoos. "I owe that man a damned big favor. If that means I have to pull your name out of the system and kill you myself, I will find a way to do that."

The assassin strode over to Axton - Axton must have, in essence, been the leader of the Vault Hunters. "Feeling popular?/Guests are coming to visit./This cannot be good." In red light displayed over his visor was an emoticon, which was rather strange. It was a face that appeared to be frowning. Well, that did seem appropriate.

Apparently it was time for the whole colony of stalkers to come out and play. At least twenty more emerged their dens, ripples of color and flashes of wings in the darkness. I made my way out of the river and picked up the gun I'd left on the ground. Something pressed against my back and I glanced over my shoulder. Axton was reloading an assault rifle, standing so we were watching what was behind one another. Maya and Gaige were standing the same way, and the remaining three were on their own. I had miscalculated. There were more than twenty, more than fifty - all of them standing around us, hissing and flicking their tails like cats. What colony had we pissed off?

Salvador was the first to break the silence. I couldn't tell what gun he was using, but everything he shot at was beginning to corrode. The stalkers erupted into a squall of charging bodies and pain, converging on us.

I must have emptied an entire clip from my Burning Anarchist into one stalker before it fell. After, I had to switch back to my shotgun. This was going to be one hell of a fight.

Axton tried to throw down his turret, but it wouldn't open. It looked pretty when it sparked, but there was no indication that the thing would work anytime soon. As if on cue, Gaige's robot fell to the ground and began to deconstruct. Oh yeah. This was going great.

My shield hadn't had ample time to recharge, so it broke after the second volley of spikes. One of the reptilian beasts snuck up on me and bit deep into my leg. My vision flickered for just a second, and my body reacted on its own. I reached down, grabbed the thing, pressed the barrel of my gun against its writhing body, and pulled the trigger. So what if the exploding bullets burned the hell out of my hand? The stalker was dead in no time.

"Hey Gaige!" Axton called. I turned to face him, firing at one of the stalkers that had gotten too close. Between the beginning of the fight and that moment, he had earned an unhealthy amount of cuts, gashes, and needle-spikes protruding from his clothes and skin. Gaige looked over, visibly shaking. "Still got those orange shock MIRVs on ya?"

"Yeah. All eight." She paused to fire a burst of rounds, driving back a small cluster of stalkers. "I'm on it."

She went to work, digging in her pockets while Maya gave her cover. I did my best to actually _hit_ targets at a distance. Had there not been so many, I wouldn't have hesitated to run into the fray and start throwing punches - as Krieg had decided to do, jumping in immediately and slashing at whatever he could. But I wasn't invincible like these guys. I was squishy; I could die. Something black flew over my head, then one went past Zer0. And another. And another. Gaige must have thrown every grenade she had.

The next thing I knew, blue lightning exploded all around me. Instantly, the stalkers cried out in fear and agony after, and then more explosions went off. Pain flared up in my left hand and traversed my entire body. I felt like I was on fire. My vision had gone white before I knew what was happening, and suddenly I wasn't standing. My head hit something hard, maybe something sharp. Seconds ticked by like hours. I couldn't have been the one screaming. I never screamed like that in my life. I vaguely recognized the smell of something burning. If not for the feeling of being crushed, I could have sworn my veins were on the verge of exploding. Then the world went black.


	10. Progress

**A/N: I only own my OCs. Everything else belongs to Gearbox.  
So, I _finally_ updated! Sorry for the wait. How are you all liking  
it so far? I've got a couple surprises ****(I hope)**** in store.**

**Property of Hyperion**  
**Chapter Ten: Progress**

* * *

Killing wasn't always a bad thing so long as the right people died. Creatures without humanity weren't the same as people, but it was the decaf to my coffee-addicted body. I could slaughter as many monsters as I wished. People, though... Blue blood spurted from a suddenly headless stalker, and my body shook with laughter. The electric shock of Gaige's grenades had torn through my shield and burned my now-numb left arm, but not enough to stop me from slinging around my axe. It was moments like this that I appreciated my body's fortitude. Without it, I probably would have died years ago.

_The room was dark. I was frozen in place by fear and elation. It was the big day. We had waited for this moment for too long. My hand wrapped around the doorknob, but I hesitated to open it. How ready was I for this?_

Pain flourished in my skull and I howled, gripping the sides of my head. "No, no, no." My axe fell to the ground. Something sharp sank deep into my leg, but it was nothing in comparison to this stabbing in my head. After a beat I kicked the stalker and knocked it away. Seconds crept by and the agony remained, angrily throbbing in my head. When the pain didn't let up, I crumpled to my knees. "Keep the memories down," I snarled. "Slash them, stab them, kill them."

_Fire erupted in my arm and licked across my back. I tried to talk, but my mouth was twisted in pain. I couldn't speak. On instinct, my hand flew to my gun. Bullets didn't bother me. I would fight through it like always._

"Make them bleed thought-juice. Make them wither. Make them hide!"

Admittedly, I was stuck somewhere between feeling and seeing. Normally I was just _aware_ about what my body was doing, sensing. I couldn't control it because I was just a voice, an impression in the back of my own head. But this agony, these memories, I experienced them _with_ my body, and I felt sorry for myself. Shock settled in, but didn't wholly blind me. I had some clarity. There wasn't sense in wasting time. I had to shake off whatever I was feeling before I could attempt to reign in my body. Getting this under control was imperative.

_"Look, stick with me, buddy. That is in the past."_

When did I reach for my shotgun? As if magic, it was in my hand, pulled from my back, and I fired blindly, shouting incoherently at the top of my lungs.

_"Stop shooting! You're gonna hurt someone!"_

"I'M GONNA BUILD AN EMPIRE ON THE MEAT OF YOUR DECAYING CORPSES!" I was enraged, but it felt a little deeper than that. What it was I couldn't figure out, but it was there. The shotgun barked again and again without any specified target. "Sing the hymns of your gnarled pancreases, my meat pretties!" The head of the last stalker in front of me exploded.

With horror, I watched as my body turned and faced the group of Vault Hunters, who were cleaning up the last of the creatures. Quickly, I gathered what so-called strength I had and tried to shout - easier said than done - and command what was already becoming a very bad situation.

_"Big guy, if you don't stop shooting, I will kill us both! It's gonna end, here and now! Understand?"_

The gun barked again, though I couldn't be sure if was because I had already been pulling the trigger or if it was out of defiance. Regardless, the bullets sank into a stalker corpse heaped on the ground. Smoke wafted from the barrels of my shotgun, and I was gasping for breath. Stalkers were lying on the ground: some in pieces, some whole. Their neon-blue blood looked _wrong_, as though it was rotting the grass beneath it; some of it was spattered on me, which wasn't the most pleasant feeling. My skin wasn't corroding, but from the smell of fetid meat and spoiled milk, I figured a shower was in order very soon.

Adrenaline was still running high like fire in my blood. That... That was a memory - a fragment, a shard of something before the experiments. It wasn't much, and I didn't dare try to recall any more right then, but it was something. It was more than I had a day ago.

"Axton, you don't get it!" Gaige was shouting.

From my knees, I turned to look towards where most of the commotion had happened. Maya and Gaige were hovering over something. There wasn't much blood on the mound between the women, but it wasn't moving either. The commando had his hands clasped behind his head as he paced, not looking too happy, and Salvador was picking through stalker piles. Someone was missing.

_"Go see what's going on."_

A gun was lying next to one of the stalkers. I hobbled over to inspect it, muttering "Soul-stabbers and meat-grabbers make sharks of the mice and mind." The gun was Jakobs made, rustic-looking and reliable. A long-barreled pistol with a comfortable grip. I shot it at one of the corpses, only mildly affected by the recoil.

_"Come on. Go make sure the Siren is okay."_

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Axton had stopped pacing, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Look, I'm sorry. I didn't know. Honest mistake, but the grenades worked."

"No, not an honest mistake, Ax. _I_ knew. If she's dead, it's on me for throwing those grenades. She's not exactly a Bandit. She was a person, like Marcy. Although it could be argued that Marcy was a vile rodent that died at her _own_ hands because she drove me to what I did, and I shouldn't have gotten expelled, nor arrested, nor _third_ place because _she_ stole _my_ idea, and I was just-"

Maya placed a hand on the teenager's shoulder. "Take a breath, Gaige." She knelt down, inspecting something. "Has anyone checked for a pulse, yet?"

_"Just do it. You've killed a lot today, and more will be waiting for you tomorrow."_

My axe clicked back into place on my belt; the shotgun slid into the holster on my back. I dropped the Jakobs, disinterested.

"Uhh, I don't do _that_ kind of science."

Groaning, I lumbered over to the group. Cypher didn't look terrible. She was decorated with stalker entrails, and her left arm was pink from burns, but she wasn't bleeding profusely. Her nose was flared, lavender lips parted just enough to reveal pearly teeth. My heart sank, I thought, at the sight.

"What?" The soldier stared at her incredulously. "So I'm getting yelled at for possibly killing someone that might not be dead? Great. Thanks, guys."

The Siren huffed, pushing some hair behind her ear. "This isn't about you, Axton," she chided. Maya pulled the glove off her slender hand and pressed two fingers to Cypher's neck, waiting. Seconds of stillness ticked by. Axton didn't seem too worried, but the Siren and self-proclaimed Mechromancer were obviously hoping to find a-

Cypher gasped and grabbed Maya's arm, pulling on the blue-haired Siren so Cypher was sitting upright. Gaige shrieked and jumped six feet in the air, only to fall on her backside. Axton's hand was on his gun, but I could see it was more instinct than aggression. Maya was visibly surprised, but otherwise held her composure well. Cypher's violet eyes were the size of saucers, darting this way and that wildly. After a moment, she exhaled and leaned back, relaxing on the grass.

There was an easy smile that lightened Maya's face. "Are you alright?"

Cypher's shoulders shook silently. She was grinning, then began to laugh aloud. "That," she started, finally releasing Maya's arm. "That was awesome!" She was having a little trouble breathing, but she seemed fine, otherwise. There were a few bites on her legs, and some spikes that would have to be pulled out later, but she was going to live. "So, we need to go to the Eridium extraction plant, right?"

Salvador tossed Maya an Anshin vial, no doubt the only one he could find. "Pequeña, pero feroz." His face was split in half by the wide, toothy smile he wore more often than not. "Small, but fierce," he translated.

They all laughed. Maya gave Cypher the injection, which made only a few visible changes. The redness in her skin faded, and the bleeding stopped. Otherwise, the new Siren was perfectly fine already. "No," Gaige started and dusted herself off. "I think it's best we rest here for the night." Everyone else seemed to agree, and they headed back to the small shack.

Maya looked back at me and smirked a bit. "You coming, big guy?"

I smiled back and raised my axe in the air. "Grind the darkness until it giggles to death!"

_"Idiot."_

It was murmured in my head with mild contempt. Were I in control, though, I would have been chuckling at myself. There wasn't anything I could do about the harsh feelings between myself and the other men in our band of merry murderers, but I still had two friends here. No, three. Cypher had stuck up for me, just like Gaige and Maya had before. Three friends that wouldn't kill me in my sleep. That was something.


End file.
